


A Warrior's Death

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: The Outer Rim [8]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Family Feels, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28259364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Din Djarin was alive.  The child was safe.   The Imps were vanquished.  He and the child were now a clan of two.So then why was it so hard to breathe?(Set immediately following the events of Chapter 8: the Redemption.)
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Series: The Outer Rim [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055645
Comments: 18
Kudos: 222
Collections: The Best Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda Whump Fics





	A Warrior's Death

**Author's Note:**

> The mental picture I had after The Redemption that prompted me to write this story.

The rocks and lava fields of Nevarro fell away beneath them as the _Razor Crest_ ascended. The child sat in his lap, curled against his cuirass, exhausted by the ordeal they had both survived. Far below, Din could just barely make out the small cairn he had left behind. A little higher and clouds surrounded them, vanishing the land.

They cleared the atmosphere and Din set the ship on autopilot in a high orbit. He knew the Imperial presence had been destroyed, but he still felt uneasy keeping the ship planetside after such a narrow escape. Especially with what had happened in the covert --

He abruptly got to his feet, cradling the child. He needed to tend to him, needed to make sure he was all right after everything. Carefully he carried the drowsy child down the ladder and to the cramped sleeping area. He set the little one down on his own bed, bunching up the thin blanket to pad the area. 

Din knelt beside him, ignoring the dull pain in his head and body. His head still pounded. Bacta had saved his life, but he knew how close it had been. It would be at least a week before his body could forget an injury that severe.

The child blinked up at him. “How are you, kid?” Din asked into the silence. 

The kid tilted his head, ears quivering faintly. He let out a soft sound, then slowly outstretched his hands, reaching up to Din. There were a few small burns on those tiny green fingers, little areas where the skin was slightly reddened. To his relief Din saw no blisters or deeper wounds. Still, though, the way the baby grimaced slightly when Din touched them tore at him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Din murmured. “Here.” He reached to the medikit stored beneath the bunk, pulling out a vial of bacta cream. He slipped off one glove and dipped a calloused fingertip in the ointment. “Can I see?”

The baby regarded him with those large, intelligent eyes, and reached toward him. Din dabbed a small amount of the cream between the child’s palms, then rubbed them together. The baby cooed, the sound sweet and bright.

“See? Feels better, right?” 

The kid stared at him, mouth falling open in a small smile, then clapped his hands together without a flinch.

Din let out a long sigh, putting his glove back on. “Good job. You were very brave.” 

He rummaged in the crate beside the bed, coming out with a kit of freeze-dried krill, some of the last from Sorgan. “Want a snack?” 

He opened the packet, setting it in the child’s lap. “Remember the nice people in Sorgan? All those kids you made friends with?” _If only we --_

Little fingers reached to the food, and the child ate the lot ravenously, getting krill crumbs all over his face.

“Here. Let me just --” Din wiped the crumbs off with his fingertips. The child leaned into his touch, large eyes falling closed as Din cradled his cheek. “Sleepy? Get some rest, buddy. I’ll be back soon. Just need to clean up a little.” The kid snuggled into Din’s blanket, already fast asleep. 

“Night, kid,” he said softly.

The door to the bunk closed behind him, the locking lights flashing. His shoulders slumped, exhaustion settling in. 

He shuffled to the wall beside the vacc tube, hitting his closed fist against the small panel that hid a shallow sink, faucet, and cupboard. He glanced back. The door to the bunk was still locked. He didn’t think the kid would try to follow him, tired as he was, but he dared not leave it to chance. Not after earlier --

He sank onto the narrow seat of the vacc, and leaned heavily against the wall. 

He forced himself to reach up and lift his helmet, hissing as the inner lining, sticky with dried blood, tugged at his hair. He sniffed, wincing, catching the scent of stale sweat and iron in his sodden shirt collar. He set the helmet down beside him on a weapons rack and methodically pulled off his gloves for what came next. 

Childhood training burned deep in his bones. _You must tend to your armor after each battle as you tend to your body. Without your armor, your body is vulnerable. The two are one and the same._

Normally his skills, his training, and his beskar kept the ritual of maintenance brief and automatic. Then again, normally he didn’t come back from a job with bacta mending a skull fracture.

_A blinding flash, the air ripped from his lungs as he flew backwards --_

_A horrific crunching, a hot flood slick down the back of his head, soaking his collar and cloak --_

He stared at his helmet, IG-11’s words echoing. _I am not a living thing._

He shivered. It was true that no droid lived. No living thing had seen him unmasked since childhood. He had sworn the Creed.

But would the Armorer have granted him his signet, had she known what he’d done? 

What he’d allowed?

_A wave of pain throbbing, overwhelming, clouding thoughts and vision, black blooming at the edges of everything --_

_Feet limp and nerveless, legs dragging in the dust, Cara hauling him from the fray like a dead thing --_

He snatched the helmet from the shelf in a quick, controlled movement, breathing hard, and turned on the water in the shallow sink. He reached for his cleaning kit and thrust his hand inside the helmet, methodically scouring the detritus away from the delicate machinery lining its inner surface. 

A frisson of revulsion passed through him as the water flowed red. Broken strands of hair, clumped with clotted blood, gathered at the drain. He scrubbed until the water poured into the helmet flowed clear, until the outside shone, until his head and his hands ached with the effort. 

_The certain knowledge that this, then, was a warrior’s death --_

_Gasping for air, chest heaving, the raised blaster in his trembling hand --_

_The air, soft on his face --_

Stiffly he set his helmet down to dry, and raised his head. His face, distorted, stared back at him from the dimly reflective wall surface. The colors were all wrong: reds and purples where he remembered brown and tan. He brought handfuls of water to his cheeks, grunting when he found undeclared bruises, a nasty cut across the bridge of his nose, blood dried hard enough in his mustache that he had to scrub to lift it. 

_Helmets stacked like trophies, beskar bones of his people in the dark —_

He gingerly touched the back of his head, his hand coming away still moist with blood and sweat. The hair had matted, mired in hopeless tangles. He’d cut it tomorrow. For now he settled with more soap and water, enough to thin some of the mats at least somewhat. He brushed through some of the damp hair with his fingers, and he wondered if the foundlings had fought back.

He stilled, his hands falling slack into his lap. He stared at the wall. He breathed in. Breathed out.

He stared until his eyes burned.

* * *

The door to the bunk hissed open. The child still slept soundly, though the blanket had fallen to expose his small shoulders.. 

Din knelt beside the child, his armor finally cleaned and restored. The kid was sleeping so peacefully that for a moment he considered sleeping up in the cockpit, letting the kid take the bed rather than move him to the makeshift hammock Din had made. Either way he’d be sleeping in full armor, as he had ever since the kid had come aboard, so it made little difference to him. But as he adjusted the blanket, tucking it in around the little one’s neck, a small hand brushed against his vambrace. 

The child blinked owlishly up at him, stifling a tiny yawn. Then he reached up, hands striving --

“C’mere,” said Din. He gathered the child into his arms and sat on the cot, letting himself stretch out. He meant to reach over and help situate the child in the hammock, but he did not. Instead the child curled up against him in the soft spot between his fresh-cleaned cloak and his pauldron.

Din laid a hand over the child’s back, watching it rise and fall with every small, rapid breath. “It was a hard day,” he murmured. “No wonder you’re tired.”

He closed his eyes. Tried to drift off to sleep, the familiar weight of the child resting against him. But he stared through the slit in his helmet up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused.

_Burrowing his face into the shoulder of the Mandalorian, the wind in his hair --_

He was alive.

_The foundlings playing games beneath the city --_

The child was safe.

_Kuiil’s small body, scored by blaster fire --_

The Imps were vanquished.

_A mechanized voice beseeching him not to be sad --_

He and the child were now a clan of two. 

_Beskar desouled, defiled, desolate --_

So then why was it so hard to breathe?

The child whimpered suddenly against him, his hands twitching, perhaps in a dream. Did his species dream? The whimper grew louder, sounding almost frightened. The little hands jerked.

His stomach clenched, the flashes in his mind receding, his focus turning sharply to the child resting on him. “It’s okay,” Din whispered, caressing the baby’s cheek, thumb drawing small circles against delicate skin. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” 

_Please believe me, kid --_

The baby murmured half inaudibly, then shifted and wrapped his arms around Din’s hand. Through the kid’s robe Din could feel a fierce heartbeat, tapping a rapid tattoo. Close to the heart, his gloved fingertips brushed against something hard and metallic. The mythosaur, memory, might, Mandalore. 

The child, the heartbeat, the mythosaur. They anchored him. They were enough.

_This is the Way._

The child rested peacefully against him, comfortably asleep once more. Din’s eyes fell closed, his mind quieting, the ache of his wounds fading. He breathed in. Breathed out. 

He slipped into a dreamless sleep, and he held his foundling closer.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe Grogu’s mind wanders in the Force while he sleeps. Maybe Din’s trauma isn’t as hidden as he thinks it is. Yes, my heart breaks for both of them and I'm crying forever.
> 
> (Also, I deal with blood and injury fairly regularly in my line of work with animals, and cleaning up after a major traumatic injury is sometimes a secondary trauma in its way, even when you're used to seeing blood and wielding a scalpel. So while beating the hell out of an opponent or killing them may not faze him, it can be different being on the other side of the hit.  
> I got a mental image of Din, shell-shocked, cleaning his own blood out of his helmet, and had to write this.)


End file.
